


Scars

by rhoen



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Blood, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Injury, Killing, Needles, Permanent Injury, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:16:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhoen/pseuds/rhoen
Summary: The mission isn't supposed to be dangerous: they're still within Konoha's borders, and should be safe from enemy nin.Things, however, rarely go according to plan.





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> For anon on tumblr, who requested how Raidou got his scars.
> 
> I like the idea of Raidou having been on a team with Aoba. I know that they advocated each team having a medic nin during the 3rd shinobi war, but... I also think that's kinda hard to implement? I bet quite a few teams had someone who knew the basics but not too much beyond that.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Raidou realises too late that the decision to split up and scout the terrain was a mistake. They’re far enough from the border to make incursions unlikely, but not impossible – the enemy nin bearing down on him are proof of that. Raidou curses under his breath, registering three chakra signatures rapidly approaching, one strong enough to belong to a jounin-level nin, and he has to hope that the rest of his team haven’t run into any trouble and rendezvous back at the meeting point on time.

Assuming they do, and they quickly realise he’s in trouble, Raidou has to face the next ten minutes alone, which, for a newly promoted chuunin, is an unenviable task. Pushing forward as if he hasn’t noticed the enemy presence, Raidou tries to formulate a plan that will buy him time, and as he passes behind a broad tree he suspects will hide him from view for a moment, he creates a clone and sends it on. He uses the precious seconds he has to rise as high as he dares, waiting for his pursuers to pass. Barely a second later, they slip past, silent figures cloaked in deep green fabric that doesn’t betray their origins.

With the opportunity he has, Raidou double-backs, making a beeline for the rendezvous point.

He’s won himself a little over three minutes and now, closer to where his teammates will meet, he perhaps has to hold the enemy nin off for five minutes. He’d hoped to get a little closer, within hearing distance at least, but he supposes this will have to do.

He’s still moving forward, desperate to win himself a few more seconds, when the first exploding tag is thrown at him. It’s simple and easy to dodge, done to test his reaction, and he avoids it effortlessly, gauging the position of the other two nin. They’ve moved to flank him. There’s no more running. Raidou comes to a halt, and draws his weapon.

At first just the one nin attacks him, rushing at him head on with a haze of shuriken filling the air before them. Raidou deflects the projectiles, hands too occupied to form seals as he weathers the barrage, and after that he can’t keep track of time. Nearly his entire focus is given over to the Kiri nin assaulting him, the rest of his awareness on the other two that have yet to attack.

They don’t take long to join the fight, and shortly after that Raidou is reduced to reacting almost on instinct alone. At first he has space to think, but then their attacks become more focused and intense, leaving him unable to strategise or do more than defend. The only thing he notices is a lack of teamwork, the three seeming disjointed in the way a new team might. They don’t seem interested in working together, each taking their turn to batter into him before he pushes them back and has to contend with the next. He’s sure it’s only that which allows him to keep going so long.

When they pull away, leaving him gasping for breath and nursing a badly bruised thigh as well as several other cuts and aches, he suddenly understands. A cruel chuckle rises in the throat of the kunoichi who favours shuriken, her voice filling the small clearing.

“Can we finish it now?”

“Is the little Konoha boy not entertaining you anymore?”

The third laughs. “He’s pathetic,” he spits at Raidou, and the word stings. Of the three, he’s the one Raidou couldn’t land a hit on.

“Come on,” the other guy urges. “Let’s get it over with and go before more trash appears. His friends are probably scurrying about somewhere.”

“I want to do it,” the kunoichi states.

“Fine,” the untouched shinobi agrees, sounding bored by the whole thing. “Make it quick.”

Raidou grinds his teeth, infuriated by the man’s casual attitude. The vast difference in power is apparent now, and Raidou feels slighted by the fact they toyed with him. At least it bought him more time.

“Right,” the kunoichi agrees, smirking as she draws more shuriken from a scroll. Her eyes fix on Raidou, a dark, deadly glare.

And then she makes her move. Knowing what’s coming, Raidou focuses on her, watching the movement of her hand and at the last moment catching the warning glint of a split along the metal. He changes tactic, shifting and twisting to the left, moving out the way of the weapons that explode mid-air, changing direction.

Shifting right into the path of the third shinobi.

Too late he registers the cloaked presence, the shadow on him before he can react. The seals already finished, the man releases his jutsu, blinding pain searing the left side of Raidou’s face. Raidou drops and twists, trying to move out of range of the attack, but the damage is done. His face, neck and shoulder feel torn open, heat burning away clothes and flesh. He can’t breathe, can’t see beyond the excruciating pain, can’t think.

He avoids the fatal blow through luck alone, snatching his chakra to him and using the body replacement technique. The man sighs in frustration, turning towards him again and repeating the same seals, but Raidou doesn’t care. It’s won him a few extra, precious seconds of life, and a chance – a chance, because he can hear a crow cawing overhead, in a forest where none roost.

Even bloodied and beaten, his nerves telegraphing searing pain through his system and begging him to surrender to unconsciousness, he manages to stay standing.  _ Just a few more seconds _ , he tells himself, desperate for victory.  _ Just a few more seconds… _

The white hot pain spreading through his body causes him to waver as he gives one last push, avoiding the attack by launching himself directly at the nin before he can finish the last seal. The ploy works, causing the shinobi to twist out of the way at the last second, and Raidou finally lands a hit on him, the kunai clutched in his all but useless left hand coming up in a scream of pain to slice through the exposed flesh of the man’s cheek.

_ Payback _ , Raidou thinks with a flush of satisfaction, already switching out again, leaving the decoy to absorb the shuriken flung at it. He can barely manage the technique, and his vision swims and darkens, the world twisting and swaying as he does it again, leaving the second man holding a kunai to thin air. He blinks the dizziness away, refusing to fail now.

He has to blink again, confused for a moment when the second man falls sideways, struck by something. His throat is sliced neatly open, the weapon already embedded in the tree behind. Raidou doesn’t turn to look. He doesn’t need to. The opportunity is there, and he takes it. He ignores the searing agony, moving on to his next target.

For all her earlier skill, the kunoichi is easily distracted. Something warns Raidou that the open back turned towards him is a trap – it has to be – but he can’t resist throwing the last of his fraying focus into a teleportation jutsu, flickering in close behind the woman and sinking the kunai into her back. It slides between her ribs with satisfying ease, and Raidou twists the blade, leaving it lodged in place as she gasps and coughs, her lungs wet with blood already.

When Raidou at last looks over, chancing a glance at whatever caught the her attention, he sees Kurenai, her expression set and determined as she dispels the genjutsu she’d cast. Crows swarm from behind her, no doubt seeming to the remaining Kiri nin to be part of another genjutsu – one he can’t dispel as Aoba uses his favourite technique to disguise his movements. Raidou pulls another kunai from his weapons pouch as his vision darkens again, and he has to fight for each breath. The pain is, somehow, even worse now, and his fingers tremble as he pushes a spark of chakra into the tag on the handle of the weapon. Its trajectory when he throws it is a little off, a little too far to the side, but it works. The remaining nin is faced with three attacking opponents, and even if he is a more powerful shinobi, he’s lost the advantage of teamwork.

It doesn’t take long for him to lose his life. In the end he’s the one to take it, preferring to keep whatever secrets he might carry secret. Raidou watches the man’s body crumple to the ground, oddly detached from the scene. He can’t think of much beyond the twisting, searing pain that’s all at once hot and cold, causing him to shiver and sweat. Distantly, he realises he’s going into shock. Something drips from his uninjured cheek, and when he touches it he realises it’s not blood.

“You need to sit down, Raidou,” Kurenai says, her eyes wide as she takes in the mess has been made of Raidou’s skin. “Let me…”

He collapses to the ground, kneeling beside the Kiri nin’s still twitching corpse, and doesn’t protest when she pulls out a kunai and starts cutting away the rest of his clothing. She kneels beside him, hands trembling ever so slightly as she pulls out her field medkit, dousing her hands in sterilising fluid before starting to bandage his skin.

“Is it bad?” he asks, aware of Aoba moving in his periphery, checking the corpses for anything useful.

“We need to get you to a medpost,” is all she says in answer. “Do you think you can make it?”

The adrenaline now leaving his body, Raidou isn’t sure. “I can try.”

Kurenai nods, working to cover the damage to his face. The area is smaller than he’d expected – the pain radiates outwards, making him feel as if the entire side of his face has been burnt away. He doesn’t want to think about what he looks like, or how extensive the scars will be.

“Here,” Kurenai says firmly, finishing with the bandage and pulling out a small field syringe. “If it’s not enough I can give you something stronger, but it should do.”

Raidou is starting to struggle to imagine anything that can ease the pain that grows and grows with each passing second. The nerve endings, frayed and burnt, radiate an overwhelming haze of pain, and Raidou feels his hold on consciousness slipping.

“Passing out,” he warns.

“No you’re not,” Kurenai says firmly. “Stay with me, come on. Aoba?”

“Here, Rai,” Aoba says, materialising at Raidou’s uninjured side and helping him to get up. His arm wraps around Raidou’s back, hooking beneath his armpit, but even there the nerves are sensitive, confused and unsure of what feedback to send. Raidou groans, leaning heavily against Aoba as they both stagger to their feet.

“There’s an outpost not far from here,” Aoba states. “We’ll be there inside an hour.”

Raidou grunts in acknowledgement of words that don’t quite make sense. Time seems abstract, unreachable.

“I can’t…” he starts, the movement required of his muscles to speak causing him to abandon the attempt.

“You can,” Kurenai encourages, walking at his injured side as they take their first few, tentative steps forward. “Just put one foot in front of the other. We’ve got you.”

“Yeah, we’ve got you,” Aoba echoes, pulling Raidou closer to his side. With his arm over Aoba’s shoulder, Raidou leans more and more against his friend. “That’s it.”

Raidou isn’t sure how long he manages to stay with them. It could have been four minutes, it could have been forty. By the time he passes out, he’s trembling so badly he can’t keep hold of his limbs. Aoba and Kurenai’s words don’t quite reach him, their conversation distant and unreachable. He doesn’t feel the second injection, or remember anything that follows for the next five days. All he knows is that, when he wakes, the left side of his face, neck and shoulder are still on fire despite the attention of medics, and he’s lying in a sterile room back in Konoha, alone and with no recollection of how he got there. He can turn his head just enough to see four cards and a bright bouquet of flowers decorating his room before the movement hurts too much, and he lies back against the pillow with a pained whimper, the fight replaying in his mind.

He knows he’s lucky to have escaped with such a relatively light injury. He knows it could have been so much worse. And yet, when, two weeks later, he’s able to look in the mirror after the bandages have been removed, he can’t help the feeling of sadness blossoming within his chest. His skin is twisted and raw, red and ugly, and when tears sting his eyes, catching him off guard, he’s glad he’s alone. He doesn’t want anyone else to see, or to ever know, just how disheartened he has become at the sight of his own face.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to hit me up on [tumblr](http://namiashiraidou.tumblr.com). I'm always up for talking about my favourite gay ninja :D


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